with gold in its hilt, guards and finial, with its knife and pricker, all set in gold partially enamelled in colours […]. One other leque from Japan with its sheath covered in shark hide set with gold, with its knife and pricker […]. Seven flags and one banner of Indian very old bertangil cloth […]. One Indian daybed, of the two recorded in this inventory […]. Two Chinese round shields with new arm supports […]. Three round shields from India, painted and old […]. One small spear from India […]. One black slave from Cape Verde, bearded man called Pedro who is thirty‐five years old […]. One cape made from quilted fabric from Chaul lined with bertangil cloth […]. One writing box from China with silver lock and fittings […]. One table from China of five palms in length with silver brackets and hinges […]. One leque from Japan set with enamelled gold and with its thick gold chain […]. One knife shaped as a Chinese fan [leque] set with low quality gold in the guards, hilt and pommel. […]
IA9 Johann Huyghen van Linschoten (1563–1611) On Indian religious art
Linschoten was born in the then Spanish Netherlands, and at a young age he went to seek his fortune in Spain. In 1583, while in Lisbon, he contracted to go on a Dutch voyage to India, where he stayed until 1592. His account of the society and culture he had seen is widely regarded as one of the finest of the period. Originally written in Dutch and published in 1596, it was quickly translated into English and republished in 1598. The present extracts focus on Linschoten’s encounters with Indian religious art. He describes various carved and painted figures (‘pagods’) and the temples they are housed in (‘pagodas’), as well as giving an account of a juggernaut. In contrast to his admiring descriptions of Indian commerce and wealth, here Linschoten’s overriding tone is one of misunderstanding, tinged with a mixture of horror and awe for the alien religious practices. This remained a significant strand of the European response to Hindu religious art well into the nineteenth century (cf. IVC1 and IVD5). Linschoten’s narrative also offers a telling example of the way early accounts by Europeans of ‘alien’ religious art mixed supposedly first‐hand description with received demonologies. Thus, as Partha Mitter has shown, Linschoten’s ‘eyewitness description’ from the 1590s of a pagod with horns, teeth and a papal mitre is indebted to Ludovico di Varthema’s 1510 description of a sculpture of the devil which was allegedly worshipped by the King of Calicut: ‘The said devil has a crown made like that of the papal kingdom, with three crowns; it has also four horns and four teeth with a very large mouth, nose and most terrible eyes’ (quoted in Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters, 1992, p. 17). The present extracts are taken from the text as printed in Peter C. Mancall (ed.), Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery: An Anthology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 189–90, 193–4 and 196–8.
In the town and Island of Goa, are resident many Heathens, Moors (which are Mahometans [Muslims]), Jews, and all strange nations bordering there‐about, every one of them using several customs, and superstitions in Religion. The Moors hold Mahomet’s [Muhammad’s] law, and the Jews Moses’s law … The Moors eat all things except Swine’s flesh, and dying are buried like the Jews, by the Heathens; as Decanijns, Gusarates, and Canaras, and other Indians being dead, are burnt to ashes, and some women being alive are burned with them, that is such as are Gentlemen or Noblemen, and the wives of the Brahmins, which are their Idolatrous Priests … [M]ost of them pray unto the Sun and Moon, yet they do all acknowledge a God that made, created and ruleth all things, and that after this life there is an other, wherein men shall be rewarded according to their works. But they have Idols and Images, which they call Pagods, cut and formed most ugly, and like monstrous Devils, to whom daily they offer, and say, that those holy men have been living among them, whereof they tell so many miracles, as it is wonderful, and say that they are intercessors between them and God. The Devil often times answereth them out of those Images. […]
The Pagods and Images are many and innumerable throughout the Oriental countries, whereof some are holden in great reverence & estimation, more than the common sort, and from all places are sought unto, and visited both by Indians & Heathens, in manner of pilgrimages to purchase pardons, which above all others, are very costly made and richly set forth … By the town of Bassaym, which lyeth northwards from Goa, upo[n] the coast of India, and is inhabited by Portuguese, there lyeth an Island called Salsette. There are two of the most renowned Pagodas, or temples, or rather holes wherein the Pagods stand in all India: whereof one of their holes is cut out from under a hill of hard stone, and is of compass within about the bigness of a village of 400 houses: when you come to the foot of the hill; there is a Pagod’s house, with Images therein cut out of the very rocks of the same hill, with most horrible and fearful forms and shapes, whereat this day the Gray Fryers have made a Cloister called S. Michaels: and as you go in under the hill, in the first circle you may see many Pagods, and stepping somewhat higher it hath an other circle or Gallery of Chambers and Pagodas, & yet higher it hath such an other Gallery of Chambers and Pagodas, all cut out of the hard rocks: and by these chambers standeth a great cistern with water, and hath certain holes above, whereby the rain water falleth into it: above that it hath an other Gallery with Chambers and Pagodas, so that to be brief, all the chambers and houses within this compass or four Galleries, are 300 and are all full of carved Pagods, of so fearful, horrible and devilish forms and shapes, that it is wonderful to behold. The other temple or hole of Pagods in this Island, is in another place, hewed also out of hard rocks, and very great, all full of Pagods, cut out likewise of the same stones, with so evil favoured and ugly shapes, that to enter therein it would make a man’s hair stand upright. There is yet another Pagoda, which they hold & esteem for the highest & chiefest Pagoda of all the rest, which standeth in a little Island called Pory: this Pagoda by the Portuguese is called the Pagoda of the Elephant. In that island standeth an high hill, & on the top thereof there is a hole, that goeth down into the hill, digged & carved out of the hard rock, or stones as big as a great cloister: within it hath both places and cisterns for water, very curiously made, and round about the walls are cut & formed, the shapes of Elephants, Lions, tigers, and a thousand other such like wild and cruel beasts: also some Amazons and many other deformed things of divers sorts, which are all so well and workmanlike cut, that it is strange to behold … These Pagodas and buildings are now wholly left, overgrown, and spoiled, since the Portuguese had it under their subjections. […]
In the kingdom of Narsina, or the coast called Choramandel, there standeth a Pagoda, that is very great, exceeding rich, and holden in great estimation, having many Pilgrimages and visitations made unto it from all the countries bordering about it, where every year they have many fairs, feasts, and processions, and there they have a Wagon or a Cart, which is so great and heavy, that three or four Elephants can hardly draw it, and this is brought forth at fairs, feasts, and processions. At this Cart hang likewise many Cables or Ropes, whereat also the country people, both men and women of pure devotion do pull and hale [haul]. In the upper part of this Cart standeth a Tabernacle or seat, wherein fitteth the Idol, and under it sit the King’s wives, which after their manner play on all instruments, making a most sweet melody, and in that sort is the Cart drawn forth, with great devotion and processions: there are some of them, that of great zeal and pure devotion do cut pieces of flesh out of their bodies, and throw them down before the Pagod: others lay themselves under the wheels of the Cart, and let the Cart run over them, whereby they are crushed to pieces, and pressed to death, and they that thus die are accounted for holy and devout Martyrs. […] And there among other strange devices that we saw we came into some Villages, and places inhabited by the Indians, where in the way, and at every hill, stony Rock or hole, almost within a Pater noster length, we found a Carved Pagod, or rather Devils, and monsters in hellish shapes. At the last we came into a Village, where stood a great Church of stone, wherein we entered, and found nothing in it but a great Table that hung in the middle of the Church, with the Image of a Pagod, painted therein so misshaped and deformed, that more monstrous was never seen, for it had many horns, and long teeth that hung out of his mouth down to the knees, and beneath his navel and belly, it had an other such like face, with many horns and tusks. Upon the head thereof stood a triple Crowned Mitre, not much unlike the Pope’s triple crown, so that in effect it seemed to be a monster, such as are described in the Apocalypse. It hung before a Wall, which made a partition front another Chamber, in manner of a
